…Continued from the previous post.

Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, CA is perfectly suited for a small-market location. Somewhere between “serviceable” and “deluxe”, it is big and gleaming enough to inspire civic pride, yet modest enough to operate profitably.

There are some flashes of big-time amenities, such as the Cross Bar, where for the price of a mere two-drink minimum (on top of your regular ticket price) you can while away the game at a cocktail table overlooking one of the goals. But in general, nothing is over the top or flashy. And clean? Crumbs don’t dare fall off hot dog buns here. And if they did, somebody would be there to catch them before they hit the floor.

The staff of both the arena and its resident minor league hockey team, the Ontario Reign, is full of energetic young people looking to stake out a claim in the sports and entertainment business. For example, the public face of the team is a young woman who conducts interviews of coaches and team officials prior to the game, for the purpose of display on the scoreboard during warm-ups. And the team official that I watched her interview? Maybe 30 years old.

On the concourse I came across a modest booth (and by “booth” I mean “fold-up table with white tablecloth”) staffed by a youthful representative of the Inland Empire 66ers, the new California League affiliate of the L.A. Angels. He was earnestly handing out pocket schedules and signing people up for a drawing for free tickets to Opening Day – which was still three months away.

With ambitious talent such as this out there, it makes me wonder why in the world the team’s ownership left it up to a fan write-in contest to name the team – and by extension, to somewhat define its brand.

The Reign has this whole medieval knights and dragons theme going on, which is somewhat distinctive. But it’s really hard to pull off “Ominous” in Double-A hockey. “Goofy” is more appropriate and plays to the strengths of its business partner “Cheesy”.

It is hard to over-do Cheesy in the minor leagues. Put a bunch of creative people in a room into which a near-constant stream of Top 40 songs from the 70’s is pumped, and they will emerge with a full slate of funny, unique, fan-based promotions and activities.

But medieval? Well, at least the mascot was a friendly dragon.

Painted into a corner with the Dungeons and Dragons theme, the Reign has put their money on being family-friendly to the exclusion of almost anything else. The first intermission in the game I attended featured a PeeWee hockey mini-game. The second, a modified shooting contest between members of two local elementary schools. It was wholesome. It was cute. For about three minutes.

I never thought the day would come when I would become an Official Advocate for The Cheesy, but give me the Anaheim Duck’s Human Puck Race or the Charlotte Checker’s Chicken Dance Contest any day.

But here I am burying the lead – there was a hockey game too! Or some semblance of one, given that the ECHL’s first-place team, the Utah Grizzlies, had come to call upon the last-place Reign.

The Reign was just two seasons removed from a Pacific Division championship and an ECHL playoff berth in its first season in Ontario. I’m guessing their fans got spoiled by that, and are having a difficult time adjusting to their new, ahem “status”.

Unlike most minor-league hockey games I’ve been to, the fans appeared to care deeply about the performance of the team. Of course, every hockey crowd dissolves into spasms of pure joy when their team scores a goal, and that was the case when the Reign took a 1-0 lead on a nifty power play goal.

It’s rare however, that minor-league fans actually get on the players when things aren’t going quite so well. Not so with these fans. They started getting restless when on a subsequent Reign power play, the only shot on goal was one taken by the Grizzlies – and it went in.

And when Utah took a 2-1 lead late in the first period, there was a smattering of actual boos. Then in the middle of the second period, when the Grizzlies scored two goals within 90 seconds – both on sketchy goaltending – the booing intensified.

It was hard to put my finger on what made the Reign, on paper at least, so bad. They skated with energy, played a physical game against a bigger opponent, and scored a couple of goals on very slick pass plays. The biggest flaw that I could identify was a lack of on-ice communication, which often led to a bunching up of players. On more than a few occasions, two Ontario players would be digging for the puck, only to have it slide out to a wide-open Utah skater.

And then there was the goaltending. To be fair, something odd was going on there. My game program listed two Reign goalies – one who had played in just six games and one rookie who had not played at all. Since this was the team’s 33^rd game, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that somebody else had been doing the bulk of the work in the net. And that that somebody was now playing elsewhere.

That’s the thing about the minor leagues. If your team is too good, the players get called up sooner, leaving you scrambling for replacements – from both a playing and promotional standpoint. To wit, the next night’s game was being aggressively pitched as Bud Holloway Bobblehead Night! Except that there was no Bud Holloway on the roster. Turns out he was long gone, called up to the parent club’s AHL team.

It also can’t have helped the Ontario cause that their roster included six players currently on Injured Reserve – four on the 21-day list. Suffice to say it was a shorthanded crew.

But nobody can say they weren’t scrappy. For lengthy portions of both the first and second periods, they carried the play to the Grizzlies, only to have Utah score on the few shots that they mustered during that time.

At times a little bit too scrappy, the Reign also racked up 11 penalties, most of which were for either Roughing or Fighting (plus one Unsportsmanlike Conduct tossed in for good measure).

Things got progressively chippier throughout the game, and veered off into an impersonation of the movie Slap Shot at times. Mini-brawls broke out as time expired in both the first and second periods, and continued until the referees could wrangle everyone off the ice and into their respective locker rooms. On both occasions, the captions of each team were summoned to the official’s box after the festivities – perhaps for a good talking-to?

When the Grizzlies scored early in the third period to take a 5-2 lead, any vague notion of an upset went by the boards (hockey term…I think). But the home team was still giving its all, so nobody left. And we were rewarded with a “Breaking Food News” announcement:  Two for one hot dogs for the duration of the evening!

More entertainment to relish! (Seriously, I really do feel badly about that one)

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